Part of my Glass to Freedom series, which is my ASLBros 2016 collection. This thing is three parts long. I hope you enjoy!
Luffy was excited.
His crew couldn't blame him, really. They were excited too, and Bushbeard – Blackbeard, the voice of Sabo chided - had done a lot of damage to them too.
It multiplied Luffy's reasons to kick his ass.
He was excited to a number of reasons, though. For one, he'd given Sabo the vivre card and he also had a piece. Luffy had a vivre card of almost all of his precious people.
(Almost, because his crew didn't have one, but they were with him and that's fine!)
"Ah, Luffy!" Carrot shouted, "Luffy! Look!"
"Neh?" Luffy complied with the request, jumping over to her side. She was pointing towards the horizon, handing him a pair of binoculars. Looking into them, he saw a close-up, but still far away, of a ship sailing towards them. The Jolly Roger design on the main mast caught his eyes, and Luffy grinned.
"Oi, Sanji!" Luffy shouted, looking beside him to see the excited Mink look at him curiously. "Let's have a party!"
"NO!" The cook shouted back, but Luffy's grin didn't fade. "We're going into battle soon and you want a party!?"
"But," Luffy protested, flailing his arms, "but it's Shanks!"
He heard Nami's voice join their conversation. "Shanks!? As in 'Red Hair' Shanks!?" Her voice was loud, and Luffy laughed in response. "Answer me, Luffy!" Nami nearly roared, stomping out onto the deck and glaring at her captain.
"Yeah!"
"You know 'Red Hair' Shanks and never told us?" Zoro quipped in, eyes gleaming.
Luffy tilted his head curiously, not understanding the question. "Eh? Shanks is a friend!" Really, Luffy thought, what was so hard about that idea?
Nami exhaled slowly and quietly, and the familiar sounds of Zoro and Sanji arguing overtook the conversation; Luffy merely grinned. Taking the binoculars and looking into them once more, he looked around in circles, looking for any sign of the large whale ship and the hidden rebel ship. His eyes occasionally flashed over to the Polar Tang, but he paid it little mind as he was focused on looking for two other vessels.
"Ooooh!" Carrot jumped up and down excitedly beside Luffy. "Do we have to change the name of our alliance from 'Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai' now because we have the Revolutionaries!?" She looked around, jumping beside Robin, who looked like she was looking for something. "What name should we change it to?"
"Aww, but do we have to change it?" Chopper asked, and Luffy while Luffy had wanted to keep hearing their conversation, something gradually appeared in the distance, and with large steps backwards, he threw an arm backwards, and let it slingshot onto one of the ships of the Revolutionary Army, and threw himself onto the boat. Loud, startled cries met his ears, but Luffy only gave his signature laugh as he sat upright, fixing the positioning of his hat. Instinctively, his hand reached for the nearest person, and he tangled his body along the person's.
"Strawhat-boy!" A familiar voice called out to him, and Luffy grinned, looking up at the person.
"Iva!" He wasn't even looking at him, but he could tell it was the okama that had helped him two years ago – he never forgot a friend! "You're here!"
"Of course!" Luffy opened his eyes to look at Ivankov. They were grinning happily at him, arms crossed defiantly. "Blackbeard's caused us a fair share of problems, not to mention the personal grudges!"
"Shihihihihi!" Then, Luffy tensed; a familiar, tingling feeling ran through him, and with rapid speed, he had untangled himself from Ivankov, threw himself across the ship, and tangled onto another person. The buried his face into their neck-tissue and tightened his hug.
"Lu," Sabo gasped out, and Luffy lessened his grip, happy that Sabo was able to breathe properly. "Hey." Sabo began properly after taking a deep breath of air. "Hey."
Luffy grinned happily at his blond brother's face. "Neeh, you guys are late! We've been waiting for so long!"
Sabo raised his eyebrows quizzically, but Luffy paid it no mind. "Oh? I'm pretty sure your ship, and subsequently, your alliance, has only been here for less than an hour." Then, Sabo blinked. Luffy blinked back blankly. "Speaking of which, your crew's been shouting for you to get back for the last two minutes."
"Ahh, then you come with me!" Luffy stated decisively, and he tightened his grasp on Sabo, ignoring his startled noise and catapulted back to the Thousand Sunny.
To Luffy, the feeling of fresh wind blowing in his face would never get old. Beside him, Sabo was shouting incoherently; Luffy just laughed. Dropping onto the Adam's Wood deck, Sabo shook like a leaf swaying in the wind. "Luffy." Sabo said. "Don't."
"Shihihihi! Oi, guys! Sabo's here!"
Luffy blinked, and then Carrot standing in front of Sabo, leaning in to inspect him. "Hi! My name's Carrot! You're one of Luffy's brother right? Great! Nice to meet you!"
Luffy blinked blankly when he saw Sabo's face fall, and Luffy unable to comprehend why – Carrot was right!
"Y-yeah," Sabo said, almost smoothly, and Luffy narrowed his eyes at the slight stutter at the beginning; something was bugging his brother.
Buggy must be bugging Sabo!
"Ooh! You must be really strong then! Luffy always said you guys could always beat him! Carrot continued eagerly, fluttering around Sabo.
Sabo swallowed, nodding hesitantly, and Luffy decided that whatever was bugging Sabo needed to be resolved. "Carrot!" The Mink looked towards her captain. "I need to borrow Sabo for a bit!"
Carrot dipped her head in understanding. "Oh, sure!" Looking back at the blond, she grinned and skipped away.
Luffy jumped in front of Sabo, who had exhaled deeply; the pirate frowned when he realized his brother was still shaking, even if just a bit. "Sabo? You okay?" He asked, reaching up for two small pieces of white paper expertly placed in the ribbon of his hat.
Sabo nodded. Luffy peeked behind him, only to see his crew's silhouette's disappear from sight as they gave the duo privacy. Turning back to face Sabo, he was surprised to see him looking intently at the pieces of paper, one in each of Luffy's hand. "Eh?" Luffy recoiled a bit, looking quizzically at the cards. "What's the problem?"
Sabo narrowed his eyes. "The problem is," he grabbed of Luffy's wrists and dangled it higher than the other, "is that you gave me a vivre card, and you didn't bother telling me who's it is." He dropped the hand, and Luffy's arm carelessly dropped to his side. "Now, spill. Who's is this?" Sabo pulled out a vivre card.
Luffy blinked as the vivre card was pushed closer to his face, but suddenly, it started to twitch to behind Sabo and his eyes widened; looking past Sabo and ignoring the sounds Sabo made regarding his actions, Luffy let out a large grin as he jumped precariously onto the railing. Looking at the vivre card in his own hand, he was delighted to see it smoothly moving along his hand. Squinting into the distance, he was pulled back onto the deck before he could get a sighting of the giant ship.
"Aw," Luffy whined, "why did do you that, Sabo?"
"You have a devil fruit and you're standing on the railing of a ship where everything else is water," Said said in a deadpan, voice, and Luffy laughed.
Sudden shouts of his crew drew Luffy's attention, and after exchanging a look with Sabo, the run towards the crow's nest – or in Luffy's case, threw a hand into the area and catapulted in. Chopper was looking into the binoculars and Usopp was pointing and rambling in the general area Chopper was looking at. A look around had Sabo staring quizzically at the docked ship of the Revolutionaries.
"I'll be back," Sabo said, excusing himself, before rushing out of the Thousand Sunny and back to his group.
Jinbei had followed after Sabo almost immediately, but instead of going with him to the Revolutionary Army, he had stopped at the deck, watching the waters bubble, and Luffy watched as he saw the grin spread on the fishman's face as the water exploded and out came the Moby Dick.
Luffy laughed at the faces of his crew: Zoro was baffled, Nami surprised, Usopp shaking, Chopper having jumped into Robin's arms, who was looking at the ship blankly, Sanji had dropped his cigar, Franky's mouth had dropped open, Brook's violin playing had abruptly stopped, and Carrot shouted. Luffy didn't really understand their reactions, but it really didn't matter.
"Let's go, guys!" He said, running out and down onto land just as the ship of the Whitebeard Pirates docked. He knew Jinbei had followed almost immediately, and the rest of crew was soon to come.
Luffy was standing right in the middle between one of the ships of the Revolutionary Army and the main ship of the Whitebeard Pirates. At the front of each, two people were staring at each other intently. One of the Revolutionaries beside Sabo gasped, clearly surprised at whoever Sabo was staring at; on the other side, it was clear to Luffy that the Whitebeard Pirates were also confused about whoever Ace was staring at. Luffy felt a large grin stretch onto his face.
Beside him, Jinbei stepped up, as it to act a peacekeeper between the two groups when Sabo stepped up the moment Ace did, when something catapulted towards their direction –
And everything was pitch black. The belated shouts reached Luffy's ears and he dropped to the ground. Suddenly, it seemed to have gotten even darker, and an explosions shook the area, sending Luffy flying throughout the darkness. He grunted when he hit something, and he blinked rapidly, glad to see the darkness stating to dissipate from his area.
What wasn't nice to know was that he was very much alone. Swallowing the lump of anxiousness that had lodged itself in his throat, he swiftly picked himself off the ground, and frowned as he saw the skid marks going far, far, into the darkness. He dodged to the right, and a bullet grazed his arm, drawing blood. He scowled, pulling his arm back to punch into the darkness –
Only to feel his arm weaken the moment it entered the dark cloud, and he was alarmed to see a bullet racing for his head-
And when Luffy blinked, he had once again collided with the ground, hands pinning him down, and the sight of blue filled his vision.
"Sabo," Luffy gasped out, and he blinked, surprised at how rough his own voice sounded. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sabo furrow his brows.
"Lu, you okay?" Sabo asked, and he swiftly crouched onto the ground, narrowly missing the sword that had embedded itself onto the cliffside wall; it didn't matter that it was at least thirty-feet from them, the sword was obvious.
Getting themselves off the ground, Luffy shook his hands, making sure they were their rubber-state once again. "Yeah," he finally responded.
Formes cloaked in the same darkness they were in just minutes ago came at them, and they both dodged with ease, Sabo's seastone pipe destroying the cloak surrounding the figures for Luffy to hit with his powers. Suddenly, Luffy heard Sabo's voice cry out, and he looked sharply to see his brother look paralyzed, watching him and Luffy turned his head to sea a spear clearly coated with seastone dust make its way towards him. With a determine look, he dashed to the right, dodging another bout of seastone-covered weapons be thrown his way.
Luffy didn't want to go into Gear 2 so early on, but if this kept up, he was bound to make a mistake – and the worst part was, he knew Sabo was right there, furiously dodging the attacks thrown his way; it was effectively separating them and Luffy hated it.
Something flew past Luffy, throwing his hair into further chaos and Luffy swiftly turned, wanting to warn Sabo because he was right in front of it -!
The object itself had been set on fire right and had crumbled to ash right before reaching Sabo's face, and the blond skidded to a stop; Luffy was confused, and he could tell Sabo was as well, before Luffy had remembered something and he grinned happily.
"What are you so happy about?" Sabo grunted, and Luffy dashed back to Sabo's side, grabbing onto his wrist and dashing farther away from the surrounding darkness that was spreading. "L-Luffy!"
"Trust me!" Luffy responded back, and Sabo fell silent behind him. Luffy skidded to a stop soon after, and Sabo did so as well, and Luffy was frantically looking around while Sabo positioned himself into a battle pose, pipe ready to strike. The feeling of a presence hit Luffy – and from the looks of it, Sabo as well – and they both turned around to see a figure crouched, the charm-like design at the end of the end still swinging, a clear indication that the person had dropped down from somewhere.
Luffy was sure that he was never going to forget the look on Sabo and Ace's faces at that moment. They both opened their mouths before something was thrown at Ace's figure, and the logia dodged right into the duo, effectively making them a trio.
"What the hell, Sabo?" Ace whispered harshly as they moved further away from the darkness. Luffy was now sure that the damn thing was following them specifically. "What the hell?"
"Me?" Sabo hissed back, looking at Ace, and Luffy was sure that Sabo was trying to glare but failing because instead he looked ready to cry. "Me? I – I thought you –"
"So did I," Ace promptly responded, and Luffy opened his mouth to respond, before Ace shoved both of them onto the ground as a shower of bullets flashed at them; it was clear Ace – and Sabo – weren't taking chances on whether or not they were seastone. The three of them met eyes, and they nodded at each other.
In a moment, they were back-to-back with each other, watching the other areas the other two couldn't keep watch of. They shuffled into position instinctively, moving as if they were controlled by one entity. People garbed with the Jolly Roger of the Blackbeard Pirates jumped out at them, from the surrounding forest, the darkness, the cliffs at the top, anywhere possible. They were surrounded.
"Oh, great," Sabo muttered, "mooks."
"Nice to know he still doesn't care about the lives of others," Ace growled out.
"Can we kick their asses?" Luffy asked. "I mean, he even said that we were going to lose!" Luffy pointed to one Blackbeard Pirate, and Luffy was ticked to hear that they were going to lose – who did they think they were?
Sabo chuckled and Ace snorted right before the first group threw themselves at the trio. Fighting back-to-back with his brothers made Luffy grin; the old feeling was familiar and it made him feel stronger than ever – they weren't even talking. All it would take was a gesture and they would react. It was clear that even twelve of years of not fighting together could not get rid of habits. The familiar feeling of being in the same position made him remember.
Luffy remembered how the world cracked – both literally and his own world – and how it was never repaired; it broke and cracked and shattered and he thought it was never going to be fixed - until then.
The world was never prepared for the three of them, anyway.